The Political Theory of Che Guevara

by Llorente, Renzo Tramer

  First of all, in considering the development of imperialism several decades after Lenin’s landmark analysis, Guevara could study not only more advanced forms of colonialism but also neocolonialism, or, rather, “the neocolonial type of imperialism,” as he calls it in his Congo Diary, where he also comments that this is “the most terrible” style of imperialism because, having the benefit of lengthy experience in exploitation, it is more subtle and knows how to disguise itself.37 Furthermore, in analyzing contemporary colonialism and neocolonialism he could avail himself of the tools and insights of dependency theory, whose main theses can be roughly summarized as follows. Underdevelopment is not a phase or stage in a given country’s development but rather a consequence of other countries’ development; that is, the state of underdevelopment does not arise from insufficient industrialization and modernization in the underdeveloped country but from the economic needs of the wealthy, developed countries whose prosperity depends on the exploitation (of labor, natural resources, and markets) in the underdeveloped countries. The underdeveloped countries remain in a state of underdevelopment because they do not control their economic affairs but rather are subject to the domination of, and are dependent on, the wealthy, industrialized countries. We know that Guevara was well acquainted with the work of Paul Baran, whose book The Political Economy of Growth was a major impetus for the development of dependency theory, and references to “dependency” and the “dependent countries” abound in his writings and speeches.38 Indeed, Guevara concludes his last major written work, Congo Diary: Episodes of the Revolutionary War in the Congo, a manuscript that he completed in January 1966 but that was not published until more than four decades later, with the suggestion that the “primary contradiction” of our era might be the contradiction between “the exploiting and exploited nations.”39 It is a proposition that plainly conjures up dependency theory.

  Second, and in all probability as a result of his familiarity with dependency theory, Guevara seems to have a more expansive notion of the “labor aristocracy” than Lenin. According to Lenin, “the bourgeoisie of an imperialist ‘Great’ Power can economically bribe the upper strata of ‘its’ workers by spending on this” a small quantity of its “superprofits” deriving from its colonial exploitation, and this practice serves to “create something like an alliance . . . between the workers of the given nation and their capitalists against the other countries.”40 Lenin considers this development extraordinarily important in explaining the emergence of bourgeoisification (in the conventional sense) and “opportunism” within the labor movement. Guevara likewise attaches a great deal of importance to the role of a “labor aristocracy” in sustaining capitalism and imperialism, observing in his unedited and posthumously published critical remarks on the standard Soviet manual on political economy that the “labour aristocracy of imperialism” is “one of the most important phenomena at the current time.”41 Yet when he argues that first-world workers benefit from the exploitation of the underdeveloped countries, as he does in a 1965 letter to Fidel Castro in which he summarizes some of the conclusions that he had reached on the basis of his experience, study, and reflection in Cuba,42 what he has in mind is the opportunism of the workers of the imperialist countries as a whole vis-à-vis the proletariat of the poor, weak, dependent countries. In other words, in the imperialist nations the concept of “labor aristocracy” applies to workers generally, who become junior partners in the exploitation of the dependent countries, as Guevara remarks in the discussion following his University of Oriente speech; or, as he puts it in later notes, having received the crumbs of colonial and neocolonial exploitation, these workers thus become accomplices of the monopolists.43 While Guevara does not analyze this problem in any detail, his fragmentary remarks suggest that he regards the absence of contact between the workers in the exploiting and exploited nations, and the structures that create antagonisms between them, as a central element in the explanation of the labor aristocracy (as he understands this concept).44

  The last facet of Guevara’s conception of imperialism that distinguishes it somewhat from that of Lenin has to do with Guevara’s own background: Guevara not only sees imperialism more directly from the vantage point of the colonized (or “neocolonized”) but also brings a distinctly Latin American perspective to his understanding of the phenomenon. More specifically, this knowledge and experience of imperialist domination in Latin America lead Guevara to focus his thinking on strategies for waging an effective struggle against imperialism in situ, i.e., within those countries subject to this domination, and above all within Latin America. Of course, in order to be able to wage an effective struggle one must first of all be clear about who the principal enemy—the principal representative or agent of imperialism—is, and for Guevara the answer to this question is clear: it is the United States, which embodies the strongest, most aggressive, most brutal form of imperialism, and which Guevara does not hesitate to call, in his “Message to the Tricontinental,” “the great enemy of the human race.”45 In a January 1964 speech, Guevara claims that the brutal policy that US imperialism has followed with respect to Cuba serves one purpose: to show “a destroyed Cuba, with all the leaders dead or in prison, with its people crushed by the imperialist boot in order to show what would happen to the people who dare oppose Yankee imperialism.”46 And in the same speech he warns, presciently, that US imperialism will carry out far greater aggression against the peoples of America in the future.47 It is worth mentioning in this connection Guevara’s very critical view of the United States’ Alliance for Progress, which, he claims in an article written in 1962, is merely imperialism’s attempt to obstruct the development of revolutionary conditions in Latin America by giving some of its profits to the local exploiting classes, and thus an attempt to stop the unstoppable.48 It is also worth noting that Guevara stresses, echoing Simón Bolívar, that “the United States intervenes in Latin America invoking the defense of free institutions,”49 while also pointing out that when the United States is disinclined to use this pretext it will always manage to find another one, such as a betrayal of the revolution, to justify an imperialist intervention.50

  Armed Struggle

  If imperialism is “the final stage of capitalism” (or “highest stage,” to use Lenin’s more familiar formulation), then anti-imperialism necessarily involves a form of anticapitalist struggle. In one sense, an anti-imperialist politics represents an indirect form of anticapitalist struggle, for what both Guevara and Lenin mean with their formulations is that imperialism is the effect, or one concrete manifestation, of the latest stage of capitalism, which is the era of monopoly capitalism. (As Lenin puts it, “in its economic essence imperialism is monopoly capitalism.”51) At the same time, anti-imperialism can indeed be construed as a direct form of anticapitalist struggle insofar as the imperialist nations’ colonial and neocolonial ventures are the cause of capitalist domination in the nations subject to imperialism.

  The question, at any rate, is, What to do? Or, rather, How should one fight imperialism? From Guevara’s perspective, the nations oppressed by imperialist domination will, as a general rule, have to resort to armed struggle to combat and defeat imperialism. As Guevara would write in the relatively brief message that would become his “farewell” letter to his parents, “I believe in armed struggle as the only solution for those peoples who fight to free themselves, and I am consistent with my beliefs.”52 We should note that Guevara’s categorical language in this letter is not entirely consistent with what he says in some other texts, in which he grants that a nation may not be obliged to adopt armed struggle to achieve its liberation. For example, in “Guerrilla Warfare: A Method,” he grants the possibility of a “peaceful struggle [that] can be carried out through mass movements that compel—in special situations of crisis—governments to yield; thus, the popular forces would eventually take over and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat.”53 Likewise, in concluding a speech at the University of Montevideo on Augus
t 18, 1961, Guevara underscores the existence of freedom of expression in Uruguay and acknowledges that it may be possible to effect profound changes through the existing democratic channels.54 Indeed, even in the “Message to the Tricontinental,” a text not infrequently referred to as his “political testament,”55 Guevara confines himself to saying that armed struggle will be necessary “in the majority of cases.”56 In light of such passages, it is somewhat misleading to attribute to Guevara a “rigid and uncompromising adherence to the method of armed struggle,” as does Michael Löwy, a generally reliable and insightful guide to Guevara’s thought.57 Nonetheless, it is indeed the case that Guevara’s considered view is that the world’s oppressed peoples, and those of Latin America in particular, will for the most part have no choice but to take up arms if they wish to secure their liberation.

  Why, exactly, does Guevara arrive at this conclusion? The most fundamental reason is that, as Guevara puts it in a speech on the eve of the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, imperialism only understands the language of force, an idea that he would repeat in an interview with an American journalist three years later.58 This is also the reason that it would be futile to appeal to international institutions,59 which would be disinclined to restrain imperialism even if they had the power to do so: organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank are, Guevara maintains, essentially in the service of US imperialism.60 (It is worth recalling here that the Organization of American States suspended Cuba—effectively expelling it—in 1962 at the United States’ urging.) And, in any event, one simply cannot trust imperialism, for “words never tally with the facts in the mouth of an imperialist ruler [mandatario].”61 Moreover, Guevara assumes that, when “faced with the dilemma of choosing between the people or imperialism,” Latin America’s “national bourgeoisies” will inevitably side with imperialism, and this consideration also makes nonviolent national liberation virtually impossible.62 Indeed, the alliance between local dominant classes and US imperialism will have the effect of emboldening the imperialists while at the same time shoring up the national bourgeoisie’s resistance to peaceful social transformation.

  With regard to the scope, scale, and ferocity of the armed struggle required to liberate the nations of Latin America (and the oppressed nations generally) and defeat imperialism, we should, Guevara insists, harbor no illusions. “We have predicted that the war will be continental,” he writes in 1963. “This means that it will be a protracted war, it will have many fronts, and it will cost much blood and countless lives for a long period of time.”63 It will be necessary to fight imperialism wherever one is and with every available weapon at one’s disposal.64 As Guevara puts it in an essay published barely a week before the Bay of Pigs invasion, “Once the anti-imperialist struggle begins, we must constantly strike hard, where it hurts the most, never retreating, always marching forward, counterstriking against each aggression,” and these blows must be delivered, as he stresses in a speech delivered at about the same time, without mercy.65 One must make no concessions to imperialism, and there can be no quarter66; to the contrary, it will be necessary to “create two, three, many Vietnams,” to use the slogan that Guevara proposes at the beginning of his “Message to the Tricontinental.”67 In the same text, Guevara writes that imperialism “must be beaten in a great worldwide confrontation”68—a fight to the death, as he underscores on various occasions69—that is to say, a war that will come to an end only with “the definitive liquidation of imperialism as an international system of exploitation of peoples.”70 It is precisely because the battle is to be of this nature that Guevara will insist (in a November 1964 speech as well as in his “Message”), somewhat notoriously, that those who join the struggle against imperialism must cultivate their hatred, which, besides making soldiers the most effective fighting forces possible, serves as a source of anti-imperialist cohesion. Hence it comes as no surprise that in his December 1964 interview with Josie Fanon, widow of anticolonial theorist Frantz Fanon, Guevara should cite “the hate which colonialism has left in the minds of the people” as one of the Africans’ assets in the struggle against colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism in their continent.71 Guevara’s defense of hatred in these texts, incidentally, is not necessarily inconsistent with his famous assertion, in “Socialism and Man in Cuba,” that “the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”72 We may legitimately feel hatred toward the agents and forces that harm or destroy that which we love, and we may only be able to help those whom we love if we develop the hatred needed to confront the forces that harm them.73

  This battle against imperialism will require a common, united front among the anticolonial and anti-imperialist forces74 in order to compel imperialism, among other things, to spread its forces and resources as thinly as possible, this being the most effective method of rendering imperialism maximally vulnerable while also relieving the immense pressure on Cuba, Vietnam, and other nations struggling to defend themselves against imperialist aggression.75 (It is for reasons such as these that Michael Löwy observes that “proletarian internationalism” was, in Guevera’s outlook, “above all a practical . . . necessity.”76) This front was to include, in Guevara’s day, the socialist countries: as noted earlier, proletarian internationalism entailed the duty to offer active, selfless support to national liberation movements and anti-imperial struggles, including the delivery of arms for use “against the common enemy, with no charge and in the quantities needed and available.”

  As for the actual mechanics of anti-imperialist struggle, Guevara is a proponent, as is well known, of guerrilla warfare, and in particular a foco (roughly, “center of action”) version of this method of struggle, which he details in Guerrilla Warfare, the first of the two books that Guevara published during his lifetime (the other text being Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War). Guevara’s conception of a foco-initiated insurgency, subsequently popularized in distorted form by French writer Régis Debray,77 holds that an armed revolutionary vanguard, properly situated in the countryside, can spark a successful revolutionary insurrection. In his writings, Guevara provides two different sets of complementary considerations that indicate, to his mind, that guerrilla warfare is the optimal method for liberating Latin America. The first set of considerations is presented at the beginning of Guerrilla Warfare, where Guevara claims that the success of the insurrectionary war in Cuba contains three essential lessons for “revolutionary movements in Latin America.” These three lessons are as follows: first of all, “popular forces can win a war against the army”; second, “it is not always necessary to wait until all the conditions for revolution exist; the insurrectional center can create them”; and finally, “in underdeveloped Latin America the arena for armed struggle must be basically the countryside.”78 In other words, guerrilla warfare proved its efficacy in Cuba, where a relatively small army of rebels defeated a vastly larger army of very well-equipped professional soldiers. But not only did the victory demonstrate the military efficacy of a guerrilla army, it also demonstrated the efficacy of such a force as a catalyst for the accelerated development of the sociopolitical conditions necessary for revolution. That is, the foco approach hastens the crystallization of both the “subjective” and “objective” conditions required for successfully taking power,79 which is to say it creates both the awareness of the need, and the desire, to take power, on the one hand, and makes it possible to do so, given the chain of events that it sets in motion, on the other. Guerrilla warfare thus serves “to educate the masses in the possibility of victory,”80 as Guevara would write in the epilogue to his Congo Diary, but not only the masses of the nation directly involved in the war: Guevara contends that “the beginning of a revolutionary war” also “contributes to the development of new conditions in the neighboring countries.”81 Finally, the third lesson also confirms the optimality of guerrilla warfare, albeit indirectly, in that Guevara assumes that it is the only variety of armed struggle that ca
n succeed in the countryside, given the operational and logistical considerations that he outlines in Guerrilla Warfare.

  In his essay “Guerrilla Warfare: A Method,” Guevara mentions three additional reasons that “guerrilla warfare is the best method.” First of all, as there will be resistance to revolution, it will be necessary to eliminate the oppressor army, and this can only be done by a people’s army, which cannot be created overnight but rather needs to obtain its arsenal from, and develop its military skill in fighting against, the state’s army. Second, the “continental” scale of the struggle for liberation will require multiple battles in many countries; these battles will inevitably take the form of armed struggle, and the only viable form of armed struggle in these circumstances is guerrilla warfare. Third, the plight of the peasantry and the intensification of its struggle against the “feudal structures” in Latin American nations generates conditions in which an insurrection in the countryside can succeed—since the peasants themselves seek emancipation and will therefore lend the insurrection their support—and, as already noted, Guevara contends that guerrilla warfare alone can succeed in the countryside.82

  Guevara advocated guerrilla warfare, and this particular conception of it, until the end of his life. Indeed, his final communiqué in Bolivia, which he was unable to circulate, actually contains a highly compressed restatement of his vision of a guerrilla force as the agent and catalyst of national liberation.83

  Guevara’s Internationalism and Anti-imperialism Today

  Half a century after Guevara’s death, it is difficult to find any grounds for challenging his uncompromising internationalism, which seems, if anything, even more sensible and attractive—not despite but because of the dramatic changes the world has undergone over the course of the past five decades—than in Guevara’s day. For one thing, extraordinary technological advances, such as vastly expanded and improved forms of transportation and communication, including the Internet, have made it far easier to act in an internationalist fashion than was the case half a century ago. For another, individual countries’ actions have a greater impact on other countries than was the case in Guevara’s time, given the greater international economic interconnectedness and integration (“globalization”) today. Finally, the forms of oppression, exploitation, and marginalization that many peoples face today may be, at least in relative terms, just as severe as they were in the 1960s. But can we say the same thing about Guevara’s conception of anti-imperialism? In other words, to what extent does his particular form of uncompromising anti-imperialism, which on its own terms is certainly intellectually coherent, remain relevant to contemporary anti-imperialist struggles?